Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[drjimwillie]

Hi, I am interested in trying Euphony/stylus. 

I am currently running AL with HQplayer embedded.  I have Roon on my NAS. I do not have any hard drive/Optane my server/endpoint one box system.

 

It used to be that Euphony required a hard drive/storage, but I understand now it can be loaded from a thumb drive into RAM. is this correct?

Although, the trial has to be run off a thumb drive. It cannot be loaded into the computer?

 

I have a Holo Spring DAC, it sounds best in NOS mode. 
 

Has anyone here been running a system like mine where they were using HQplayer to upsample to a Holo Spring DAC and they find Euphony with Stylus to sound better. With no oversampling?  No HQPe. 

 

Can I use Euphony with HQPlayer embedded to upsample to Stylus player ?

 

Have I read that some are using HPQe with no upsampling? 
 

Thank you 

Will
 

 

[drjimwillie]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Until I bought an Optane drive I was using USB drive, running HQ player & Stylus, sometimes Roon, but Stylus sounds better. 
 

Load trial onto usb stick. Then loads up. Stylus gives you option to complete installation, just choose your usb drive from drop down menu. 

Are you saying Stylus by itself sounds better than stylus with HQPlayer?

 

What DAC do you have?  Does it up sample?

are you playing the Files at their native rate?

 

I do not know if I can use an Optane drive in my computer and I’m not going to install a SSD or HD.  I do not want to run off a USB drive forever.  For long term I want to be sure that I can load the software into RAM and remove the thumb drive.

 

I am excitedly looking forward to hearing from others that have a Holo Spring DAC. 

 

Please enjoy your day

[drjimwillie]

I use Acourate Convolver digital room correction in conjunction with HQPe currently. 
It is my understanding that the best sound is currently from Euphony with Stylus player only.

How would I use Acourate with this setup?

[drjimwillie]

Hello Friends

How does Stylus sound different from StylusEP?

 

To see if there was an answer to this, I went back in this thread about a year from when StylusEP was released and read the entire thread in the last couple of days, but there is no direct comparison.

 

If I have a high power One box server with a good power supply, designed for running stylus by itself, connected directly to the DAC, how does this sound different from having the same one box server playing only StylusEP connected directly to the DAC. 
 

The reason I ask is because I currently have a one box server connected directly to the DAC and I have Roon on my NAS. This way any processing that Roon does, and I see the hard drive light on my NAS indicating a lot of activity for Roon, removed from my server so that all my server does is process files.

 

So, if my high-quality dedicated stylus server, is fed by a good quality server,  that is handling just Roon, the only way I can do this is to have stylus EP installed on my server. 
 

What other functionality am I losing by doing this? Does StylusEP allow you to do core isolation?

 

The closest comparison I’ve seen is @flkin, but his comparison had HQ player embedded involved.

 

if we are going as far as loading tracks into RAM and waiting for all hard drive activity to cease before playing our files, why do we want Roon activity (or any player/search activity ) taking place in the same CPU?

 

Also, does the Roon server have to be running Euphony?  Currently the server that is going to run Roon is running AudioLinux. I thought I had read someplace that someone was running two servers one had AL and the other had Euphony.   But I did not find it here, it was probably on the “novel “thread?

 

(really I just want to run Stylus, and feed it a stream like I would from Tidal or Qobuz, but have it come from a different computer. But that functionality does not exist – Yet)

 

thank you

May the music bring you peace

[drjimwillie]

Thank you for the good info.

 

ultimately that’s what I’m trying to achieve, stylus an all in one server, All buy itself.

but rather than run the file/song selection software on the same machine that I’m sending out my data to my DAC, I want to offload it.

I would just like that offloaded computer to process the files. That way I’m using my all in one server playing stylus, just as an endpoint.

 

I am obsessed with reading all of the stuff on all these pages and do it for a couple of hours every day. I love all of the information.

 

I have not seen a comparison by anyone of stylus all by itself compared to stylusEP - playing stylus. 
 

thank you

 

 

[drjimwillie]

It is my highest ambition to be able to contribute to the body of knowledge here.

 

I would love to make the comparison, but I do not have the second computer yet.

 

i’m doing this in preparation to receive a new computer and I would like to be able to use the existing computer in an contributive way. With a pathway to upgrade that computer in the future.

 

The reason I’m trying to get an idea of this now is, if someone helps me optimize a system, I do not want to waste that effort, so I need to know what I want.🤨

 

with a highly optimized system is it useful to bring in that second computer for offloading, or detrimental to the sound?

[drjimwillie]

That is exactly what I’m doing, putting all my hard earned cash in one place.😅

 

I was also trying to figure out how to use Roon without the sound penalty.

 

I guess one variable here is that my Roon server would be xenon caps pipeline, with a good PSU. Who knows if it’ll make a difference? If the theory is that the other computer should be faster and a better quality system then it might help?.
 

I really value your judgment, thank you.

so you don’t use Roon?

[drjimwillie]

Euphony playing Stylus, in a one box system directly to the DAC Is a special sauce I want to try. 
 

To do it I’m going to change the way I’ve been playing music for years, which is with HQ player.

 

Eventhough it will be high powered I’m still thinking about it as an endpoint. 
 

I think people that continue to use HQplayer might want a two box system. Especially in the future if they think they are going to be able to use the EC modulators to DSD512.  Who knows what the future will bring, but you might not be able to passively cool it.  Regardless, you would not want that much noise/activity in the machine connected to your DAC. 
 

and you would want that DAC connected machine to play Stylus. 

[drjimwillie]

On 5/13/2020 at 3:22 PM, ASRMichael said:

Hi guys, I posted this in the wrong thread by error. I think better posted here, anyway...

 

I would appreciate peoples thoughts on the two setup options?

 

Option 1 - Edge Router > Ethernet > Sonore OM > Fiber - EtheRegen > (NUC acting as NAS running Euphony Share, A-side of EtherRegen) > Ethernet > Server

                                                                        

Or

 

Option 2 - Edge Router > NUC acting as NAS running Euphony Share on router Eth port) > Ethernet > Sonore OM > Fiber > EtheRegen > Ethernet > Server

 

Note NUC & Server both powered by SJ LPS, Option 2 effectively isolating the NUC.

I get your question. Should you plug your NAS into your Edge router or should you plug it into your EtherRegen. 
I think it is a very good question.

Is it better to isolate your NAS before your FO by installing it on the edge router or after the FO by installing it on the EtherRegen. 
1. Does having the NAS on the edge router reduce traffic to the Audio system

2. Does not having the NAS on the EtherRegen help the sound. 
 

there are two threads on AS where this would be better placed. EtherRegen and networking 

[drjimwillie]

Good Day Audio Friends,

I have not used Euphony Stylus yet. I am building a new system and this will be my operating system and player.  
I am considering putting my equipment rack in the basement, but my speakers are on the first floor of the house, which means that The volume control on my preamp will not be accessible and the remote for my preamp will not work also.

Does Stylus have digital volume control and what is your experience with it, please?

Does this sound like a good idea to you?

Thank you 

[drjimwillie]

Hi

I just installed a euphony system update. 
does anyone know where to find the system update log?

I would like to know what is different. 
thank you

I hope you are enjoying your music as much as I am🙂🎶

[drjimwillie]

Hi - I need some help becaus I just had a few conversations with Euphony support and I am confused.
I have a highly optimized server with a PF ultra OCXO clock on the motherboard and a PF ultra OCXO clock on the I2S bridge. I am currently only running Euphony and Stylus on it. I would like to try running it as a Euphony Endpoint. So, I purchased a Euphony Endpoint license. 
I thought, if I owned a server license and an endpoint license I could choose where to use them.  
I would like to experiment with Euphony server on my old CAPS Pipeline Computer. 
Zeljko said that I would have to move my server license to the pipeline, or purchase another server license.

This does not sound right to me. 

I own a lifetime license for Roon and I own HQ player and Accourate Convolver.

everyone says that Euphony and Stylus by itself sounds the best, but I want to find out for myself. 
although, I cannot stomach having to pay for two server licenses if I will only ever be using one server and one endpoint license.

from reading this thread I thought it was easy to switch use back and forth from server to Endpoint. Is anyone else doing that and how are you doing it? Did you have to buy two server licenses?

my next step was to take the J cat Femto ethernet card out of my current server and replace it with the new Jcat Ex Ethernet card, when I can save up the money from selling some of my older gear. This way I can take the J cat ethernet femto card and put it in my pipeline server.

Thank you

[drjimwillie]

How do I read or write to a hard drive in Euphony?  How do I even see a hard drive in Euphony?

my motherboard is older and does not have a M2 slot. I have a 32 GB Optane M2 memory and a PCIE adapter card. I would like to see if I can use it like a hard drive to load some songs, but I am not sure where or how to look. 
 

Thank you
 

[drjimwillie]

16 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

I am not sure what you mean. Are you talking about booting from an external USB vs loaded Euphony in a "hard drive" like a traditional internal solid state drive ? I put my Euphony in my 64 GB Optane M2 but it does need M2 Slot (though I think you might be able to use the Adaptor card) I load some songs in there. But not a lot of space. I just delete them when I am done. You can also load via network drive I think but I just remotely load into the Optane via file manager. Try not to occupy > 70 % of the Optane drive as beyond that might affect sound it seems. 

Hi Chopin - thank you for the reply.

How I have my OS loaded was going to be my second question.

 

The question I asked above is a basic navigation question. I don’t know my way around Linux/Euphony to find where a hard drive would be.  I am inferring from your response when you say file manager, that on a separate windows or Apple computer, when I see my server on the network, I should be able to navigate to any hard drive on it. Is that correct?

 

My current computer/server is in older CAPS Pipeline, with a supermicro motherboard and a Xeon  CPU. There is currently no hard drive installed and I am running the OS off a thumb drive.  I purchased the Optane stick and the PCIE adapter card to run the OS on. My intent is just to use it as NVME. When I went into bios to set up the boot drive I did not see an option for NVME. I contacted Supermicro and they told me that NVME will not work in this computer.  
However, considering that I have the Optane and the PCIE adapter card, I want to install it just to see if I can load some files on it, to see if they sound better than files loaded on my Nas.  That is why I am asking how I can see and access it.

If I can get it to work, next I will try to load the OS onto it, as I would prefer that to the thumb drive.  
I own the full license of Euphony 

[drjimwillie]

On 4/22/2021 at 4:22 PM, di-fi said:

I recently did the same. 16Gb Optane card + adapter card in only PCIe slot of my (2017) SuperMicro mobo. Euphony will recognize the Optane card and create partitions and install the OS on it. BUT I could not get my system to boot from it (after removing usb drive). I also got in touch with SuperMicro, they confirmed there is no reason it should not work, just let the BIOS know there is a card in PCIe slot.  Please let me know if you get it to work. 

I installed the M.2 drive on the adapter card into the PCIE slot. I used BIOS to assign EFI to that slot and I was able to see the Optane drive in Euphony. I used the euphony utility to copy the OS from the thumb drive onto the Optane. I was not able to boot from it. Even with the help of super micro support, No success. The tech said if the drive did not show up in the boot utility, it was never going to be able to use that drive to boot from. 
The good news is now I will be able to store some music on that 32 Gig Optane drive, the bad news is I have to figure out how to reformat that drive.😳

On 4/23/2021 at 1:37 AM, flkin said:

 

Euphony has it's own File management also if you don't want to use SMB (samba). It's there in the menu but only functional when opened in a browser and not the Euphony App.

 

Also if you want to use SMB to move files around, it's better if the Expert settings LAN speed is set to 1000 rather than the 100 or the copy speed will be too slow. 

where is the information on the euphony file management?
I looked in the user manual and I could not find it.  

I will have to look for a reference on how to use samba. 
I have two euphony servers currently, I was able to see one on the network, but I was not able to get into it even using the password euphony and username Euphony. 

I just put the new Jcat net XE card in my super endpoint. (I am calling it a super endpoint because it was my state of the art server and I am now experimenting with it as an endpoint, using my old CAPS pipeline/ Xeon as the server feeding it, as an experiment. I have it so I thought that I should see what happens if I use it.) The result is that my Crosshair VII with PF ultra clock on MB & PF ultra clock on I2S sounds flat by it’s self, compared to when it is being fed by the Pipeline server.

Even with the new J cat net XE card, files on my NAS sound better than from Qobuz.  
One thing I found interesting the other day was, I was going to install the J cat net Femto card I had removed from my super endpoint into the caps Pipeline server. I was playing a song from my  NAS, loaded into ram for playback. I powered down the Pipeline and the entire album continued to play.  I was assuming when the file was loaded into ram, it was loaded into the ram of the server but obviously I was wrong because it is loading it into the ram of the endpoint.

 

I will have to look at the IRQ to determine this but? I do not use USB, I use I2S from a pinkfaun ultra card and I am wondering how to identify the I RQ and if that should be isolated.

 

thank you

 

[drjimwillie]

I own the full version of Euphony on the pipeline computer and I am running it off a thumb drive. Now that I know that I cannot use the Optane for the OS, I realize that I am having an issue upgrading to the latest OS. 
The manual says to “ complete installation “ but I do not see this as an option. 

What do I do, please?

 

I have the low power NVME SSD From my original pipeline build, with the SOTM SATA filter, I could power it from one of the rails of my HDPlex LPS. But, then I am breaking two rules one using SATA into using SSD.  What would you do?

 

maybe I can buy A used full-size motherboard and CPU to put in my HDPlex H5 case?

[drjimwillie]

Hi 

I hope you are listening to some good music. 
 

I just installed an Optane SSD 900P 280GB PCIE driving my server. I am not sure how to use it, will you help please?

 

In Library/ internal drives/  I can see nvme0n1, size= 260.9G. But Free is “-“  

Down under Action are … (3 dots) when I “click” it, the only action is format. 

this is a brand-new drive, do I have to form at it?

When I look at the pamphlet that came in the box with the Optane Drive, it says to install the Intel NVMe driver.  I don’t have to do that because this is Linux, correct?

 

and then I want to copy the files from my NAS to the Optane. 
 

and then I want to attach the obtain as part of my library.

 

screenshots along with advice would be fantastic.

 

Any advice would be great.

Thank you

Will

[drjimwillie]

Where do I find the file manager in Euphony? I looked in the manual but I don’t see information on it.

thank you

[drjimwillie]

Good day

 

I have an 280G Optane Drive in one of my PCIE slots in my server and I want to put music on it, but I do not remember how.

I bought the Trillium Q System Disk and I downloaded it and copied it onto my NAS. 
I looked at the Euphony file manager, I can see the Optane Drive, but when I click on it it does not show me the files. I went in through systems into library to internal Drive and I am not sure what to do there either.

I cannot play from my NAS Because I do not have that drive attached. I am only playing files from the internal Optane Drive. 
Thank you for your help.

[drjimwillie]

Well, this does not sound right to me at all.

euphony is the most expensive player software, except for Roon lifetime subscription. And that was for a lifetime subscription.

periodically, I didn’t mind the couple of times so far, that I have upgraded Euphony. The product was improved so it was worth the expense.

this time, reading about the improvements, I am not impressed and I am not very interested in their Added features, I don’t think I will use them.  Sound quality, absolutely yes and I am willing to pay for a license upgrade.  But I want to own it until I choose to upgrade it.
 

I have a much bigger grievance with this subscription idea.

As you know you can buy a full Euphony license and you can buy an endpoint license. 

I have a high power server that I have been using as a StylusEP, I was feeding it from a CAPS Pipeline running Stylus. 
Some of the time the Pipeline server would get glitchy and not work or I would want to use my high powered server as a standalone server or I wanted to test one server versus two.
 I thought I could use one full license and one endpoint license, because at any one time I would only ever be running One instance of stylus and One instance of stylus EP. But, to do this I would have to get tech support to transfer the full license from my pipeline to my other server. And then transfer it back when I got the pipeline working again or I was done with my listening test.

I was forced to buy Two full licenses.  Now, I have paid $600 to use Euphony.  That is more than the Roon lifetime subscription. 
The reasoning I was given is that if I’d ever sell one of my computers it would have the Euphony software on it and they would need to provide tech-support.

I did not know that the Euphony license was transferable, but now I do. Also this infers that the Euphony license has an intrinsic monetary value. 
well, the pipeline server died so now I own two full licenses and I am only using one. When and if I get a second computer I can have the license transferred to that computer.  But, what happens now that we are moving to a subscription-based scenario, does that unused license lose its value over time? Then, I would feel like I am being Stolen from.

 

I would like to hear your opinion, please?

 

I have another question, is anyone using Euphony with a Asus Sage computer that has two CPU like the Extreme?  would I need two licenses to use Euphony on a two CPU computer?

 

Thank you 

[drjimwillie]

I did not beta V4, V3 is working well and I did not want to mess with it.

 

The one area that I think could use improvement are all of the pick boxes where you Interface with the software. I have a 10 inch tablet, but every place I have to pick is very small.

 

Also the box where you enter the information is not long enough, if you have a track that is very long, it is bigger than the box, so you cannot see the full entry and it is hard to edit. 
 

that is what I would like to see in a new release. Is the new software easier to use?

[drjimwillie]

Is there a different user interface?

 

I am on my tablet and the tab says:

Euphony Web v3.20210716 And below it shows the IP address. Is there something more specific I should be using on my tablet?

[drjimwillie]

Do we have to use the USB stick?

 

Can we just do an internal system update?

[drjimwillie]

When I install from the USB stick, will have to set everything up again?

things like, how’d find the music on my internal Optane drive, password for Qobuz?

 

I have not used Roon and HQP For a long time. Those connections are in V3 also, will they be passed to V4?

 

I am typically a set it and forget it person. I cannot remember the tweaks that I have done🤪
I also had some CPU isolation.  Will that be lost?

[drjimwillie]

This is such a PITA

I had to purchase the software before I saw where to put my coupon code so I purchased a full price license. Now I have to go through the hassle of being refunded. 
 

I purchased a different license using my coupon code. Now I currently own three Euphony licenses. 
 

it is a pain to have to reload off the freaking USB drive. Why can’t we just upgrade like we did any other time. I don’t like messing around like this. The whole idea of euphony is it supposed to be simple, I should just be able to update my system within the software. 
 

now, I’m having trouble writing to the USB drive. it is a brand-new super high-end USB 3.1 Samsung 32 GB flash drive  
The downloader has downloaded 100% and I’m waiting for it to do something with the written progress bar.

nothing yet.

do I start over. 
This is why I hate this shit